A scalable distributed algorithm for shape transformation in multi-robot systems

Abstract— Distributed reconfiguration is an important problem in multi-robot systems such as mobile sensor nets and metamorphic robot systems. In this work, we present a scalable distributed reconfiguration algorithm, Hierarchical Median Decomposition, to achieve arbitrary target configurations. Our algorithm is built on top of a novel distributed median consensus estimator. The algorithms presented are fully distributed and do not require global communication. We show results from simulations in an open source multi-robot simulator.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2007
• Where: IROS
• Authors: Ram Ravichandran, G. Gordon, Seth Copen Goldstein
• Keywords: Hierarchical Median Decomposition, IROS 2007, Median Consensus Estimator, Robotics, Scalable Distributed Reconfiguration